Wanna get control? Use the education system.

[slow_dazzle]

If you ever want to look into the education system, and how it creates a servile class, you might find John Taylor Gatto's website worth perusing (linked below).

One section from an article on the site chimes with me, largely because I am increasingly of the opinion that there is an over-arching system of control. Cautionary note: consider the context of the period in which this notion of education was evolving because it might be rendered null and void if the system no longer works as it did back then.

Inglis breaks down the purpose - the actual purpose - of modem schooling into six basic functions, any one of which is enough to curl the hair of those innocent enough to believe the three traditional goals listed earlier:
 
1) The adjustive or adaptive function. Schools are to establish fixed habits of reaction to authority. This, of course, precludes critical judgment completely. It also pretty much destroys the idea that useful or interesting material should be taught, because you can't test for reflexive obedience until you know whether you can make kids learn, and do, foolish and boring things.
 
2) The integrating function. This might well be called "the conformity function," because its intention is to make children as alike as possible. People who conform are predictable, and this is of great use to those who wish to harness and manipulate a large labor force.
 
3) The diagnostic and directive function. School is meant to determine each student's proper social role. This is done by logging evidence mathematically and anecdotally on cumulative records. As in "your permanent record." Yes, you do have one.
 
4) The differentiating function. Once their social role has been "diagnosed," children are to be sorted by role and trained only so far as their destination in the social machine merits - and not one step further. So much for making kids their personal best.

5) The selective function. This refers not to human choice at all but to Darwin's theory of natural selection as applied to what he called "the favored races." In short, the idea is to help things along by consciously attempting to improve the breeding stock. Schools are meant to tag the unfit - with poor grades, remedial placement, and other punishments - clearly enough that their peers will accept them as inferior and effectively bar them from the reproductive sweepstakes. That's what all those little humiliations from first grade onward were intended to do: wash the dirt down the drain.

6) The propaedeutic function. The societal system implied by these rules will require an elite group of caretakers. To that end, a small fraction of the kids will quietly be taught how to manage this continuing project, how to watch over and control a population deliberately dumbed down and declawed in order that government might proceed unchallenged and corporations might never want for obedient labor.

Hitherto, I've always been a bit leery of global elites because of the baggage that accompanies such a world view. My stance has mainly been one of a loosely connected set of overlapping interests whose actions are not concerted but which further the perpetuation of a ruling class. But, the more I delve into this stuff the more I am inclined to believe that the agenda is being set by a very few people. "Very few" is not an absolute term so let's substitute that with "an elite".

There are many counter arguments to the line being sold on Gatto's website but, equally, there seems to be fairly strong evidence for a system of education that is (or was) specifically designed to create a pool of servile workers and a small elite to oversee the corporation. If that is correct then we might just have a little window into what is really going on. Are we really free agents or are peoples' hopes and fears deliberately manufactured to suit the agenda of those who want to lord it over the many?

john taylor gatto

[Hugh Manatee Wins]

Children are a culture's front line in the war for hearts and minds.

Countering the conditioning of TV, movies, and ignorant parents who believe CNN is our challenge.

Become a substitute teacher. Then substitute the truth for the usual 'lesson.'

[Hammer of Los]

Become a substitute teacher. Then substitute the truth for the usual 'lesson.'

You know, i could actually do that.

I could show the class a video of WTC 7 being blown up!

[sijepuis]

Following is a link to an interview of Norman Dodd, conducted by E Edmond Griffin. In the 50s, Dodd was appointed by the Reese congressional committee to investigate the activities of tax-exempt foundations [Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, etc], during which he discovered coordinated efforts on their part, from as early as 1908, to achieve two goals: (a) control the State Department [ie, foreign policy] and (b) co-opt the American education system. These, they concluded, would give them control over all aspects of life in the US and, ultimately, the world.

If you are not familiar with this interview, it's a real eye-opener.

Hidden agenda of the Tax-exempt foundations
http://tinyurl.com/2uh4pe

See also:
Schooled to be "Stupid in America": Public Education as Elite Mass Control, for a review of Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education.
.

[slow_dazzle]

that would be funny but my instincts tell me more people under 21 have seen 9/11 documentaries that challenge the OCT's than those over that age.

Mind you, it would be so goddam funny if you pulled something like showing footage of WTC7 coming down with voice overs. But I doubt if the PTB that would laugh very much...

Seriously, this attempt (largely successful it seems) to control education is worth looking into a lot further. As HMW pointed out children are the target of the propagandists so it makes sense if those seeking to control opinion embed their ideas into the system right at the time they are most likely to have an effect; the formative years.

And add in the writings of theorists such as Mencken (spelling?) and we have a propaganda machine that goes quite a way back in time.

[sandymac]

I pulled my son out of high school and homeschooled him through a charter school. The school authorities were well on their way to "diagnosing" him as "learning disabled" when in fact he just didn't care about the stuff they were trying to force him to learn. He was bored and refused to conform. He ended up staying home and playing his guitar, piano and video games, building his computer and getting his assignments done when I bugged him about them. He's now 19 going on 20 and is a person who actually thinks for himself. Luckily, I picked up a copy of Gatto's book, The Underground History of American Education, years ago in a used book shop.

[brainpanhandler]

Wasn't sure where to put this:



This is an uncomfortable, for me, intersection of perfectly correct analysis of the American public education system and a seedy underworld of conspiracy theory that brushes up against unsavory movements and characters. I went to American public schools in the 1970's through the mid-80's. While I might have found a way to retain a minimal ability to think for myself, that was not the path of least resistance, even in otherwise somewhat enlightened to at least benign schools with a strong liberal arts educational ethos guiding the curriculum.

Obviously turning the American public education system into yet another profit center for the 1% is an awful idea. But it kills a lot of birds with one stone.

Liberals can be kept defending a system so broken by lifting the likes of a Betsy Devos into the public spotlight. "If Devos is advocating homeschooling or charter schools or voucher programs, then those can't be good things.", one might imagine American liberals saying to themselves.

And now you throw the virus into the mix.

I vacillate between incredulity that there could be any central control and planning designed to produce an intended result, such as total technofascist control of the population (and that world events can and should be looked at in that light) and thinking rather that the plan is merely to unbalance institutional homeostasis to such an extent that somewhat predictable openings to further expand control will arise and can be exploited; a sort of controlled demolition and semi-organic reorganization of civilization.

Maybe the latter is more likely in that the degradation of the web of life on the planet changes all calculations no matter how near magic the algorithms get at predicting outcomes in a vast set of interdependent variables.

[JackRiddler]

I vacillate between incredulity that there could be any central control and planning designed to produce an intended result, such as total technofascist control of the population (and that world events can and should be looked at in that light) and thinking rather that the plan is merely to unbalance institutional homeostasis to such an extent that somewhat predictable openings to further expand control will arise and can be exploited; a sort of controlled demolition and semi-organic reorganization of civilization.

The difference is important but the latter describes a logic of capitalism that drives forward regardless of who is planning it or aware of it. Both options also sync with the open and constant neoliberal (as well as conservative, if there's a distinction) drive to privatize and marketize all public institutions, to take costs off public budgets and pass them on to education-consuming households.

.

[Grizzly]

Students shouldn't be forced to attend any schools. Compulsory education is slavery. Read John Gatto's book The Underground History of American Education and you'll never see the world the same way.

[Elvis]

I was taught some wack shit in school.

[PufPuf93]

People without education are far more likely to be purveyors of "wack shit" than the educated.

Some favor a religious themed education that fosters mental illness.

A disappointing part of the USA culture is how intellectuals are negatively perceived.

[Harvey]

People without education are far more likely to be purveyors of "wack shit" than the educated.

Is that so?

Hitler Youth.jpg

[Grizzly]

[PufPuf93]

People without education are far more likely to be purveyors of "wack shit" than the educated.

Is that so?

Yes

"far more likely" is not the same as "are".

There is also a gaping nuance (I know gaping and nuance are opposites) between education and indoctrination.

I favor individuals taking control of the course of their own education as early as they are capable. Adults lie to children for various reasons. Use the parts of the educational system that is available to you and catalogue but do not spend much time on the rest. Learn until you drop (and one's mind fades with wear and tear and time). I am tired Harvey.

[Harvey]

In my city, the main military industrial contractor up the road sets subjects and questions in the local high schools. Other businesses have increasing influence through the partnerships which began under Thatcher and vastly increased through Blair. Education isn't necessarily an education, nor is it neutral. Education is whatever 'the powers that be' design it to be. I thought this was well understood.

Here's Professor David Miller* discussing some nuances (or aspects) of higher education in the UK:




*Author of A Century of Spin: How Public Relations Became the Cutting Edge of Corporate Power and Thinker, Faker, Spinner, Spy: Corporate PR and the Assault on Democracy among many other books and academic papers. << Incidentally, I note that a free PDF of Century of Spin is available for download from his own website at that link. I highly recommend it.